Excessive Fondness
by xoxfiresignx
Summary: "I've lived a thousand lifetimes and taken a thousand lovers. I know more about love than your puny human mind could ever possibly comprehend." Clara and the Doctor have a conversation about love.


**A.N**

**Is it odd that I ship Clara/12 far more than I ever shipped Clara/11? **

**Peter Capaldi is fantastic.**

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><p>"Why're you doing that?"<p>

Clara looked up from the TARDIS console, her eyes wide and bright. "Doing what?" she asked, pulling a lever experimentally. The Doctor sighed, his eyebrows pinched together, and leaned over to flip the lever back to its original position.

"That weird... thing. With your mouth. The music-y thing."

One of Clara's eyebrows shot up into her hairline - an expression she had made so many times in recent months that she was certain the muscles in her forehead were more pronounced on one side than the other. "I'm humming?" she said, exasperated. "You know, something that humans do when they're happy?"

The Doctor scoffed, his coattails flapping as he dashed around the console. "That's hardly an excuse." He stopped moving suddenly, looking at her critically. "Go wash up, you look dreadful."

"How is that MY fault?" Clara threw her hands in the air. "You're the one who always picks me up at the worst possible times!"

Scoffing again, the Doctor crossed to her and started pushing her down the stairs. "Worst, indeed. I aimed for mid-morning so you would have time to wash, but instead you smell all... spicy." He sniffed, his nose crinkling in distaste. "You smell like P.E. Have you started wearing his cologne?"

Clara, who had been struggling against the forced motion, blushed a deep red and averted her gaze from his. "None of your business," she mumbled, turning around and skipping lightly down the stairs away from him.

The Doctor started, nearly losing his footing on the steps. His expression hardened and he turned away - he always did, when faced with the reality of Clara's relationship with Danny. "I see," he said, the judgement in his words biting like a whip. "Had a bit of a lie-in at the Pink residence, did we?"

Clara spun around, a swell of fury rising in her. "So what if I did?" she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest in a show of defiance. "It's none of your business WHAT I do with Danny!"

With his back turned to her, The Doctor's grimace was well-hidden until he spoke. "It is when you come in here all stinky and HUMMING." He moved back to the console, pretending to navigate the TARDIS. "Really, Clara, you're an adult. Adults don't HUM."

She stormed back up the stairs. "They do when they're in LOVE!" she hissed angrily, spinning him around by the elbow just in time to see his reaction to the word. "But I suppose YOU wouldn't know anything about that."

She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, but she couldn't un-say them. His dark eyes had grown even darker, his normally expressive features passive and cold. She reached out for him, apologies swirling in her mouth... but they died on her tongue as he spoke.

"I've lived a thousand lifetimes and taken a thousand lovers." He gathered her hands in his and pushed them back into her own space. "I know more about love than your puny human mind could ever possibly comprehend." He flicked her forehead and turned back to the console.

Clara was shocked into silence for a long moment. "Y-you... you..." she stuttered awkwardly as she searched for the proper word. "Prat!" She slammed her hand down on the console and was rewarded with the satisfying image of the 'AUTOPILOT ENGAGED' message flashing across the screen. The Doctor looked at her with his eyebrows raised, as though surprised by her reaction. "_I've taken a thousand lovers_," she mimicked, her terrible Scottish accent grating against the words like sandpaper on steel wool. "That's not love, that's... that's..."

"Are you suggesting," the Doctor asked, taking advantage of her fumbling. "That I would ever take a lover whom I did not love?" Clara's expression answered the question so clearly that he backtracked slightly. "I was... excessively fond of every one of them."

"Oh, _excessively fond_." Clara leaned against the console, her arms crossed again as she glared into his face. "You're _excessively fond_ of practically everyone you've ever met. You're _excessively fond_ of Strax - is he one of your thousand lovers?"

The Doctor sighed, his whole body moving with the breath. "What do you want me to say, Clara?"

Clara's lips pursed into her control-freak expression - one that he found simultaneously impressive, adorable, and terrifying. "Have you ever been in love?" she asked slowly, each word hitting him in a staccato beat of insistence.

It took a long time for the Doctor to answer. "Four times," he said finally, grudgingly, his own arms crossed in a mirror of Clara's stubborn body language. "Two of them I married -"

"River?" Clara supplied helpfully, clearly interested by this new course of conversation. "And... who, Elizabeth?"

The Doctor shook his head and raised his hand to stop Clara's indignant response. "Yes, I married Lizzie, but I was only... excessively fond of her. The first was my wife... back then." When Clara frowned in confusion, he growled. "_Before_. On Gallifrey. Back _then."_

Clara's eyes widened - this was new information. The Doctor almost never spoke of his life before the Time War. She decided not to push the issue, knowing the pain such memories caused him. "The other two?" she asked quietly, touching his arm briefly.

"I lost one of them."

"Rose Tyler?" When the Doctor nodded, Clara's hand returned to his arm. His eyes met hers and he nearly fell into the depths of compassion he saw within her. Clara knew the story of Rose Tyler; knew how her loss had broken the Doctor beyond all measure. She had seen the pain in the face of the Tenth at the mention of 'Bad Wolf' and she saw it now in the lines of misery on the Twelfth's. "I would have liked to meet her," she said quietly, a sad smile gracing her lips.

The smile was answered. "You'd have liked her." The pain faded; he let out a rough huff of laughter. "And she'd have _loved_ you. Ordinary girls doing extraordinary things; Bad Wolf, the Impossible Girl... you'd have gotten on famously, the two of you." Clara grinned at the Doctor's sudden expression of fear. "God help me, I'd never make my own decisions again."

Laughing, Clara released her light grasp on his arm. "And the fourth?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

"Hm?" The Doctor had nearly become immersed in the console again.

"You said you've loved four times; you've only described three."

The Doctor froze, his eyes locked on the screen. His hands hovered, stuck in the middle of half-realized commands, over the TARDIS controls. Clara frowned and poked his cheek. "You okay?" she asked, concerned.

He shook himself - literally shook, from head to toe, like a dog - and looked at his companion again. "I was human once." Before Clara could ask, he continued. "I mean, I thought I was human. I had to go undercover somewhere - for something - so I locked all of this -" He pointed at his brain, wiggling his fingers and his eyebrows in exaggerated explanation - "Into a watch. Or was it a compass?" He shrugged, ignoring Clara's incredulous look. "Anyway, I fell in love with this woman. John. No, I was John. She was Joan; that's right. John and Joan. Ridiculous. Should never have let that happen."

Clara seemed to have difficulty following this, but she didn't ask for details. "And... you loved her? Joan?"

The Doctor shrugged again, more harshly this time: it looked as though he were trying to dislodge a particularly insistent bug from his shoulders. "I think I did," he said absently, his hands finally landing on the TARDIS controls. "I don't remember. She was a nurse. Or a schoolteacher. Or a nurse. One of those."

Clara blinked, her lips lifting on one side. "A schoolteacher, hm?"

The Doctor shrugged yet again. "Yes, well," he said gruffly, looking at her from the corners of his eyes. "I suppose I have a type."

A long moment of silence followed as both individuals realized what he had said. Both straightened; both stared. Clara's mouth opened; the Doctor took a few steps back from her. Both swallowed; both spoke.

"Clara, I -"

"Doctor, did you -"

The TARDIS landed roughly, sending Clara stumbling to the edge of the platform away from the Doctor. He dove to the console, twisting the screen towards him to see where they had arrived. He laughed.

By the time Clara righted herself, the Doctor was standing at the open door, through which she could see her apartment. She looked at him, confused.

"Go wash up," he said quietly. "I'll come back later."

Clara strode back into her flat, too confused to argue. "Doctor -" she began, spinning around to confront him - but the door was closed, and before she could say or do anything else the TARDIS wheezed away, vanishing into the ether of time and space.

_"I'll come back later," _ he'd said. Clara wasn't sure she believed him.

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><p><strong>A.N<strong>

**I'm fairly certain this is a one-shot. I had this scene in my head but nothing else.**


End file.
